


and indeed there will be time

by the_crownless_queen



Series: Sapphic September 2019 [4]
Category: Captain Marvel (2019)
Genre: Come on, F/F, Gen, Sapphic September, Sapphic September 2019, because you can't tell me Carol never came back for Maria and Monica, carol and talos are buddies i don't make the rules, one day I'll write the angsty memory loss fic this pairing deserves, today is not that day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2019-09-04
Packaged: 2020-10-09 05:17:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20510078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_crownless_queen/pseuds/the_crownless_queen
Summary: Once the Skrulls are (mostly) settled, Talos insists Carol needs a vacation.There is really only one place she could go to. Home.





	and indeed there will be time

**Author's Note:**

> Experimenting with a new pairing... I loved them when I saw the Captain Marvel movie, and then of course that movie we shall not speak of basically erased Maria and Monica despite them being such a huge part of Carol's family? So this is me ignoring that - or trying to, at least.
> 
> Written for Day 4 of Sapphic September: "Need a hand?"  
You can find the prompts I'm using [here](https://the-crownless-queen.tumblr.com/post/187393992430/sapphic-september-2019)

__**and indeed there will be time  
** To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”**  
**

_\- The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, T.S. Eliot_

By the time they’ve found a planet the Skrulls can settle on, months have passed. It takes months still to make it liveable enough that people actually start settling on the ground, and even longer for everyone to stop coming back to the ship.

It’s been the busiest year of Carol’s life, and yet, without meaning to, she’s still spent a considerable amount of time staring into space, wondering…

Wondering about…

Well, about things she probably shouldn’t wonder about.

That is, until Talos corners her (sometimes, she misses the days he was still mostly scared of what she could do.)

“You should go back, you know. Now that you’ve brought us to a safe place, we can handle ourselves without you — we’ve done it for years.” It’s harsh, but not unkind — and it is definitely true.

Still, Carol shakes her head. “I’m faster. Your people are still scattered all across the universe, bringing them all here —”

“Will be the work of a lifetime. Possibly longer,” Talos interrupts. “And you’ve done so much for us already…” His eyes drift to his family, safe and miraculously whole despite the odds, and he sighs wistfully before turning back to face her.

“I’m blessed to have my wife and our family with me,” he tells her. “Having been separated from them before, I know how hard this must be for you.”

“Oh, Maria and I are not like that.” Carol blusters, flustered all of a sudden. “I mean, we’re family, yes, but not…” She waves at Talos’s wife and child. “We’re not together like that.”

“Aren’t you?” Talos arches an eyebrow at her pointedly. “I never gave you a name, did I?”

Carol’s saved from answering by a call for her name, and she’s glad to spend the rest of the day doing the grueling work that is building one of the new houses for Talos’s people.

It stops her from thinking about Talos’s words, at least.

Because the truth is…

The truth is, Carol isn’t sure what they were. Most of her past is still a blank — even now, a year after she freed herself from the Intelligence, she still randomly gets flashes of memories sometimes, or dreams she can never quite tell are real or not.

Talos, unsurprisingly, finds her looking at the stars the next morning.

They’re so different from the ones she knew on Hala as Vers, but also from the ones she thinks she remembers from Earth, from being  _ Carol, _ that she can’t help but feel a little lost.

“I’ll come back,” is the first thing she tells Talos. 

“Of course,” Talos replies, as though he had never even thought otherwise.

Carol snorts. “That’s awfully confident of you.”

“Or I just know you.” He rolls his shoulders and cracks his neck. “You can consider this a holiday, if you’d rather,” he offers awkwardly after a short pause. “You do deserve some rest.”

“Talos, is that you trying to kick me off the planet?” Carol laughs as Talos splutters to answer, before slapping the ground and getting up.

“Alright, then, I guess I really do deserve a holiday.”

* * *

Carol touches down in the field behind Maria’s house again. The area’s changed enough in the past couple of years, but not enough so that Carol can’t recognize it. She stands there for a few moments, breathing in the air quietly.

Earth’s atmosphere tastes different somehow. All planets do, really, but Earth… Earth feels special.

“Come on, Carol, you’ve made it this far!” she mutters to herself, roll back on her feet.

Somehow, walking off that field and back into Maria Rambeau’s life fills her with more fear that facing the Kree empire.

But Carol’s no coward, and she takes a deep breath, muting the colors of her armor with a quick swipe before she sets off walking.

She finds Maria in her makeshift garage again, bent over a car engine in greasy overalls that have seen far better days.

Carol’s heart swells in her chest, and her hands start sweating. She would have kept watching for a while longer if Maria hadn’t started swearing, casting a hand about while the other helps keep the hood open.

Carol saunters closer and pulls it open for her. She can’t help but grin widely. “Need a hand?”

Maria swears again, and then Carol has to jump away to avoid getting a six-inch wrench to the face.

“Well, you haven’t changed.” She laughs, and Maria gapes, her wrench slipping through her fingers.

_ “Carol?  _ What are you doing here?” Her hand reaches out for Carol, trembling, and stops halfway, dropping back to her side. “Wait, there isn’t  _ another _ alien invasion, is there?”

“No alien invasion, I swear,” Carol replies, still smiling. “Erm, hi? It’s nice to see you again.”

“Hi,” Maria repeats. She looks a little shell-shocked, and Carol can’t resist.

“Sorry for dropping in like that. I would have called, but…”

“Let me guess,” Maria drawls dryly. “No intergalactic service?”

“Not really, no — well, nothing that’d work reliably with current Earth tech anyway.”

“Well, I see your sense of humor is still terrible at least. And you look…”

“Awful, yes, I know. In my defense, I did just fly in more another galaxy.”

Maria’s lips twitch up into a smile. “I was going to say you looked beautiful. That other galaxy’s been good for you.” She casts another look back at the car and sighs, seeming to come to a decision.

“You can let go of that,” she says, nodding to the hood Carol’s still holding open. “Pretty sure the motor needs replacing, and that’s not something I can do right now.”

“If you say so,” Carol replies, shrugging as she pushes the hood close.

They drift into the house, and Maria takes out a pitcher of sweet tea out of the fridge. It tastes familiar, and Carol sighs, setting the glass down half-full still, fingers tapping against the table.

“How’s the kid?” she blurts out, instantly biting her tongue at how sudden that sounded.

But Maria’s face just breaks into a happy smile. “Great. She’s amazing — misses her aunt Carol, obviously, but…” She shrugs and drinks some of her own tea. “Honestly, I think it helps to just know you’re out there, somewhere.” 

Her smile turns amused. “She stays up some night, goes into the backyard and just watches the stars and makes up adventures for you to be on.”

“Oh?” Carol grins, leaning forward. “Anything good?”

“Well, a fair amount of them involve you rescuing some type of alien princess, so I’m not quite sure she really got what you were doing.”

“Sounds glamorous, though.” She wiggles her eyebrows. “I guess I am living the high life.”

Maria snorts and shakes her head. “God, I forgot how ridiculous you were.”

And just like that, the mood turns serious again.

Carol sighs, circling the rim of her glass with her index finger. “Is this awkward?” she asks. “This feels awkward. It wasn’t this bad last time.”

Maria shrugs, looking pensive. “Last time, you came back from the dead and we helped you save the world. This time… You just showed up after almost two years of silence.”

Guilt churns in Carol’s stomach even though she knows it could hardly have been helped.

“Of course,” Maria continues, “I don’t blame you or anything — you’ve always had to help, and I love you for that. But it does make the reunions a little bit awkward.”

“Hey, at least this time I wasn’t dead, right?” Carol raises her glass toward Maria.

“There’s that.” Maria snorts as she raises her own glass and knocks it against Carol’s.

“So,” Maria starts after she finishes her glass. “How long are you here for?”

Carol shrugs. “Couple weeks? Maybe more? Haven't really decided yet, but I’m on holiday so… I can stay for a bit.”

“All the places in the universe and you chose to come back to this rathole?!” Maria frowns. “Wait, you get holidays?”

“Talos insisted,” Carol replies, and Maria nods like that makes perfect sense. “And where else would I have gone? You’re here, Monica’s here…” She shrugs and busies herself with her drink so she doesn’t have to say more.

“Aw, you missed us.” Maria’s eyes sparkle, and Carol valiantly resists the urge to poke her tongue out at her.

“Maybe,” Carol grants with fake-begrudgingness that Maria sees through in a heartbeat.

“It’s okay,” Maria replies, her voice and eyes soft. “We missed you too.”

Her glass is empty now, so Carol pours herself a new one. “It’s good,” she says, wishing she had something cleverer to say.

“I know,” Maria replies proudly. “It’s an old family recipe — your favorite, too.”

“It is?” The words slip through her lips before Carol can hold them back, and she has to press them close as the pain that briefly flashes through Maria’s dark eyes.

“Yes,” Maria says calmly. “Pretty sure half the reason we stuck together in the beginning was because you got addicted to this and nobody else would make it for you.”

And as Maria says it, the memory blooms in Carol’s mind, slotting into place like it was never even gone. She smiles, raising her glass to take another sip.

“That’s because you’re the only one who made it the  _ right _ way,” she counters in an argument that tastes familiar on her lips.

Maria laughs. “So you do remember then.” She shakes her head ruefully. “I still maintain you were just lazy.”

“I wasn’t.” Carol pouts. “You already could make it perfectly, why should I have messed with that?”

Maria’s doubting glare is familiar too, and Carol smiles to see it. “Sure, whatever you say,” Maria drawls.

“And to answer your question… I remember some things. Not all of them, but… enough to piece together most of it.”

Maria winces. “That blows.”

That startles a laugh out of Carol. “Yeah, it does. But hey, I got superpowers out of it, so not the worst bargain in the world.”

“Very true.” Maria toasts her again with a smile.

There have been many moments over the past few years where Carol had wished she could remember her past. Too many to count, even.

And yet, somehow, none of them have felt as intense as the longing she feels now, in Maria’s company, for memories that have slipped beyond her reach.

Carol licks her lips, tasting sugar and fruit. She hadn’t lied, telling Maria she remembered most of it, but… That’s not the whole truth either.

The truth is that Carol’s not quite sure if she can trust all of her memories.

“Were we… You know, together?” she finally asks.

Maria smiles. “We  _ are. _ If you’d like to be.”

Carol’s throat feels strangled. “Still?”

Maria arches an eyebrow at her. “You know, we technically never broke up. You just died, then you  _ didn’t _ die, and  _ then _ you left for another galaxy to save an alien race.”

Carol huffs out a laugh and shakes her head. “Well, when you put it like that…”

“Besides,” Maria continues, “it’s not like my prospects were that great either. Between work and Monica, I barely have time to myself, much less date anyone new. And,” she adds, swallowing and looking away, “I didn’t want to think it was over. Easier to think of it like an extended deployment far, far away.” She smiles. “Plenty of military wives don’t see their husbands most of the year,” Maria points out with a shrug. “It’s not that unusual.”

“Is that your way of asking me to marry you, Rambeau?” Carol asks, heart beating just a little faster. Her veins feel so alight she has to check she’s not glowing — but no, she’s not. She’s just happy, and amused, and excited.

Maria grins back. “That depends. Is that your way of saying yes, Danvers?”

Carol’s mouth falls open, and Maria starts laughing. “Relax, Carol. It’s fine — you just said you couldn’t remember everything, I’m not going to spring a ring on you right now.”

Carol catches the emphasis on the ‘right now’, and she can’t help but smile. “But later is okay then?”

Maria shrugs. “If you want it to be. It’s mostly a symbol, anyway. Way to make sure you don’t forget about us up there.”

Carol shakes her head, grinning fondly. “Maria Rambeau, I could never forget about you,” she says, and it might just be the truest thing Carol’s ever said. 

Maria had been among the first things Carol had started to remember about herself when she’d begun to recall her past, after all — but more than that, Maria is  _ home. _

And Carol will always come home, no matter how long or arduous the path.


End file.
